is that it reflects the reality that Obama’s “Birther” strategy has failed politically, something I have long argued.

Listen to the crowd reaction beginning at the 2:08 mark, as Donald Trump vigorously and repeatedly states “I want him to show the birth certificate.” The crowd claps loudly to Trump’s words. (It seems an unlikely time for the producers to have flashed an applause light, so it is fair to assume the crowd reaction was spontaneous.)

Comments

I was incorrect on one point above. According to the most recent census, most black Americans do not live under the poverty line. Only 1/4 do. %24.7 (as compared with 11.2% for white Americans). Of course, since municipal employment has provided opportunities to minorities to enter the middle class, the layoffs will hit them hard.

Laurie, there are any number of examples of Obama's racism, as well as the fact that he surrounds himself with racists.

Obama called his grandma a "typical white person."

With the black professor/white officer conflict, Obama said the white officer acted stupidly, even as he admitted he didn't yet know the facts!

Jeremiah Wright was his preacher for TWENTY years! This is the guy who preached that the white American government created diseases to kill black people, this is the US of KKK A, Obama quoted his "white folks' greed runs a world in need," etc.

When all this came out about Wright, did Obama distance himself from this flaming racist? No! He could no more disown him than his "typical white person" grandma.

And then shortly after that, Wright pointed out that Obama was just doing what politicians do, and Obama immediately disowned him. Using lies about white people to stir up anger in blacks, bashing America, that's one thing. But when you insult Obama, now THAT is going too far!

He appointed Eric Holder as AG. Holder dropped the case against the Black Panthers in a clear case of voter intimidation for no reason. When called to account for this, Holder defended himself by referring to black people as "my people."

Now I want you to imagine if there was an election between two candidates, one white, and one black. Outside the polling booth, there are Klansmen in uniform, wielding weapons. And a white AG, working for a white president, drops the prosecution. And when asked to answer for this, he defends himself by referring to whites as "my people." Can you imagine what would happen?

As far as black poverty goes, you will find that a huge part of that is the rate of out-of-wedlock-births, and single-parent households in the black community.

Other people can move to America with nothing, and by the time their children grow up, they can get college educations and make it. So why are blacks still so far behind after multiple generations? These immigrants have something that no longer exists in the black community – strong families and a strong work ethic.

The source for today's ills in the black community isn't slavery, but the welfare state created by liberals to buy the black vote and keep them down.

One of best friends growing up was a black kid, living with his younger brother and single mother. His mom lied about not knowing who the father was, and when the father was in the home, she lied about that, to game the system and make more in welfare and food stamps. Welfare made it a disincentive to marry the daddy.

And although my friend was in a single-parent family, and received welfare and food stamps, he had a much higher standard of living than my family did.

To say his grandmother was a 'typical white person' was simply to say she is middle America. Middle class, not an academic, not an activist, not like his exotic mother who married men of other races in 1960. She was, people who are afraid of me, like you. And she was the center of my life.

Jeremiah Wright. Obama became involved with the church as he reached out to churches to do political work. Churches are the gathering places and institutions with authority on Chicago's south side. Jeremiah Wright baptized him. He was like a family member. You can't think of a family member or an old friend of yours that has gone round the bend? I can. And I don't cut them out of my life because I love them, not because I agree with them, and not because they don't say things that offend me. My father used the "n-word" Does this mean I am a racist because I navigated this rather than cutting him out of my life?

Wright started to attack Obama– to whom he'd once been like an uncle (surrogate male figures are common when you didn't have your father) and who had been a loyal family member all these years. Wright even went on talk shows to promote himself at Obama's expense– of course Obama HAD to cut him off. He had no choice. 1) Wright had demonstrated that he was so mentally ill that he would try to hurt the man he'd once loved. And, 2) Obama's campaign was not just about Obama. It was about an agenda of changing what had devastated the country and our faith that the constitution would even be upheld. How could Obama allow Wright to do any more damage to a campaign that was on behalf of those of us in Iowa who gave him his first win in the primary, for people all over the country that set aside their fear that he 'couldn't win' and — yes–for the millions of black Americans who had never seen someone who looks like them in the White House.

I'm not seeing any racism. And as far as those democrats that were racists… as we all know, they were 'southern democrats' which for a long time meant democrat in name only (DINO).

Holder. I don't know all the details, so I won't comment. I can say that Bush's AG was probably the most corrupt ever.

Anyway, calling him a racist based on your examples is a leap, and not warranted. I would suggest you read "Dreams from My Father" as you obviously have not. I think it's important to read this before you make attacks on his character.

SO… what are the policies you think would help the poor rise up? (I don't mean in some kind of revolution. This is what we DON'T want.)

If I may be permitted to interject here. Although I am a mostly silent follower of Prof. Jacobson, I do occassionaly make a comment. I am not into rambling conversation, but rather would debate on the facts.

Here are the facts for Laurie who seems to think that by pulling the race card, she has somehow legitmized her agrument.

THE NATURALIZATION QUESTION.; THE POSITION OF THE ADMINISTRATION DEFINED. Important Offical Paper.

[H]ere none but a native can be President…A Native and a Naturalized American can go forth with equal security over every sea and through every land under heaven, including the country in which the latter was born…They are both of them American citizens, and their exclusive allegiance is due to the government of the United States…One of them never did owe fealty elsewhere, and the other, at the time of his naturalization, solemnly and rightfully, in pursuance of public law and municipal regulations, threw off, renounced and abjured forever all allegiance to every foreign prince, potentate, State and sovereignty whatever, and especially to that sovereign whose subject he had previously been. [end quote]

Laurie, your many-word wishing away of what the majority of us perceive as Obama's racism (whether he's negatively anti-white or activist pro-black) is a fail. The fact you think you have to try is more telling than anything you have to say.

My supposition is that most of us here and in the Tea Party look in the mirror in the morning and don't see white, black or brown categories, unlike you who sees a "white lady." I truly believe any fact of our racial heritage jumps out at us less than whether we have sleepy in our eyes and bed hair.

Now, if one constantly has race on the mind, whether it be white guilt, La Raza, or black pride, then, sure, we'd know what color we are according to Democrats and the Census. But according to me, I'm simply tan-beige and can be assigned a number in the color spectrum. Analyze my DNA and who knows what you'll find that you can't see by shade and feature.

WHY are communities of people still identiying themselves by race, and imprecisely at that??? Race is all about gang, clan and party/ partay association and social construct; clearly, scientific logic and empiricals haven't yet penetrated the skin tone (and climate boogeyman) crowd, yet.

Obama could've called himself white, albeit dar-complexioned. Halle Berre can pass as black for the Oscars. Pale people who are significantly Negroid by DNA can still lay claim to being black. IOW, until we have genetic testing as to people's racial heritage and assign political definitions of race by chromosomal markers and analytical numbers, race is a state of mind, culture, history and political opportunity. It's high time we deemphasize, deglamorize and defang race and other inborn physical traits as stigma, advantage and bludgeon in our political discourse. People in the burbs or ghettos are simply individuals choosing to live with and next to one another. Should they happen to share skin color, then theirs is a voluntary association and no longer, these days, a social-political requirement given the force of law and raised sensibility.

Anyway, there is no countering our in-the-minority racists (of all races, to include the anti-Semites, skinheads, the Aztec Nation, Nation of Islam and the Reverend Wright whom Obama patronized by his church attendance and contributions) by constantly invoking, stoking and provoking over race; there is only heightened race consciousness. More and more of us are certain that Democrats want this emphasis on race far more than would seek to conquer racism, as claimed, because it's too politically lucrative.

The losers in this game of party political masters and servant communities are all of us: the entire country, a PC crippled, apologetic West and all of the handicapped by resentments and manipulated to stay damaged ethnic voter blocs. No one wins.

@Laurie A few points at the risk of feeding the tangent on the liberal racist nightmare of white flight with "taxpayers (on 5 acre parcels, which precludes population density sufficient to be self supporting) want neighborhood schools in their sanctuary and have redirected scarce school funds to create underpopulated schools ‘close to home.’"

That is a quaint analogy about where you live, but it's hardly the prevailing situation everywhere. Just look at the way NJ funds public schools with local taxes and state 'aid' to address the inequality of opportunity to get a decent education between school districts. School districts in NJ inner-city poor minority areas tend to have higher spending per student with much lower revenue from the local community than those in your little five acre lot sanctuaries.

Those suburban pools of higher income taxpayers on 5 acres lots "redirecting scarce school funds" are not only paying nearly the entire budget for their local "underpopulated" schools through local taxes, but they are also providing substantively to the state aid to the inner city schools, at least in NJ. A GAO report found a few spending differences between inner-city and suburban schools, but the phenomenon you describe was not generizable across the districts they examined.

Concern over Obama has little to do with race. Whether or not you see it, it doesn't matter. It has more to do with him being little more than a community organizing union thug in bed with what's being slowly exposed as a very corrupt union, period. And union officials like his friend, Andy Stern, are in it all for themselves, not the workers. They will do anything to subjugate the workers' right to choose and force them to pay dues for his union to spend to influence political issues which have little to no effect on the workplace whether the workers there want to be in that union or not. They want to take away the workers' sovereign vote to grow the political power of the collective through any means available to, as Obama put it, "paint the nation purple with SEIU". The internet is full of examples of SEIU extortion, bullying, intimidation, stealing, opening peoples' mail, and outright violence to expand their domain at the expense of other smaller and honest local unions who actually care for the workers across this country. Just look for NUHW in California and Sodexo and you'll see some of their handiwork. And let's not forget their alleged involvement in the attempt to buy Obama's vacant Senate seat which is stuff that would make the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families proud. Open your eyes and go look for them.

I personally don't give a rat's ass about Obama's birth certificate or the color of his skin. I care about his continuous associations throughout his career with morally and ethically bankrupt organizations and how much he's an integral part of that fabric becomes more obvious every time he opens his mouth. Good luck.

(Also, the actions of a parent do not affect the citizenship of the child.)"

Actually, Who is US Constitution .net?A quote from them means nothing.A quote from the writer of the 14Amendment is definitely much more reliable. John Bingham said this in the debates leading to the ratification of the 14A in 1866, w/ no rebuttal.:

"[I] find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…"

Mick– Do you take this to mean that a natural born citizen cannot have ONE parent who is a foreign national? If this were the law, natural born citizens would all be children of the American Revolution. Thinkin' not.

Runic- The idea people just happen to live next to one another is a great dream, but a long way from true. Of the black friends I've had over the years, I have naturally been most comfortable and closest to those who didn't make race a part of our relationship. White guilt isn't my pathology. But I also get that we are partly our experiences. And these are related to our race, gender, age, religion, etc.To say these are or should be inconsequential politically is both dishonest and rarely in the interest of both parties….

Frank- The folks on the 5 acre parcels Don't pay even their share of the school property tax, that was my point. (We also have a local sales tax for the schools.) Anyway. I appreciate that this may be anomalous, but I can't see any reason that Americans, as citizens, should be permitted to allow their fellow citizens (who will vote) access to quality public education. (And quality– inevitably means as good for one as good for all.)

The union stuff you discussed is interesting. And I will take your suggestion and learn more. thanks.